Finns live in smaller homes than Americans and consume a lot less. They spend relatively little on national defense, though they still have universal male conscription, and it is popular. Their per capita national income is about 30 percent lower... Private consumption of goods and services represents about 52 percent of Finland’s economy... Finns pay considerably higher taxes — nearly half their income... Finns have extraordinary confidence in their political class and public officials. Corruption is extremely rare... I was bothered by a sense of entitlement among many Finns, especially younger people. Sirpa Jalkanen, a microbiologist and biotech entrepreneur affiliated with Turku University in that ancient Finnish port city, told me she was discouraged by "this new generation we have now who love entertainment, the easy life." She said she wished the government would require every university student to pay a "significant but affordable" part of the cost of their education, "just so they’d appreciate it."

The Finns are very devout people, / they always create church services, / when there's devotional meetings, circusamusements or excellent humour, / their faces look like they've eaten yoghurt. (Pidetään ikävää, "Let's get bored", from the album Maximum Jee & Jee, 1979)

Finns, among other pagan delusions, would offer wind for sale to traders who were detained on their coasts by offshore gales, and when payment had been brought would give them in return three magic knots tied in a strap not likely to break.

Olaus Magnus in his Description of the Northern Peoples in 1555 (Jonathan Clements, An Armchair Traveller's History of Finland, 2014, bookHaus, ISBN 978-1-909961-00-5)